RBC PMI™ hits three-month high in March driven by stronger new order gains

TORONTO, April 1, 2014 /CNW/ - Solid rates of growth in output and new
business were recorded across the Canadian manufacturing sector in
March, according to the RBC Canadian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index™ (RBC PMI™). A monthly survey, conducted in association with Markit, a leading
global financial information services company, and the Supply Chain
Management Association (SCMA), the RBCPMI offers a comprehensive and early indicator of trends in the Canadian
manufacturing sector.

At 53.3 in March, up from 52.9 in the previous month, the headline RBC
PMI was the highest since December 2013. The index has now registered
above the neutral 50.0 value for 12 consecutive months and the latest
reading indicated a solid pace of expansion across the manufacturing
sector.

New export orders increased at the second-fastest pace since last
October but, on a less positive note, there were widespread reports
that supply disruptions had led to longer delivery times for raw
materials and an associated increase in unfinished work in March.
Meanwhile, input cost inflation was the steepest since May 2011, which
manufacturers overwhelmingly linked to currency surcharges related to
the weakening Canadian dollar.

"Canada's manufacturers have experienced solid conditions for growth in
the last year, and March was no different - we saw a nice uptick from a
month earlier," said Craig Wright, senior vice-president and chief economist, RBC. "We continue to expect that underlying economic conditions - a
strengthening U.S. economy and a weaker Canadian dollar - will lay the
foundation for a boost in domestic manufacturing in the near-term."

A weaker Canadian dollar contributed to further upturn in cost inflation

The rise in the headline RBC PMI was driven by an improvement in new
business growth from the six-month low recorded in February. Moreover,
the latest increase in new work was the fastest in 2014 to-date. Higher
levels of incoming new business partly reflected an acceleration of new
export order growth.

Production volumes continued to rise at a solid pace in March, but the
rate of expansion eased fractionally over the month. The latest data
suggested that manufacturers experienced delays in receiving raw
materials from vendors, which weighed on output and created an
accumulation of backlogs in March. This was highlighted by outstanding
business volumes rising at the steepest pace since August 2011.

Average lead-times from suppliers lengthened to the greatest degree for
just over two-and-a-half years in March. Anecdotal evidence cited a
range of factors, including the Port of Vancouver strikes, rail
transportation delays and ongoing logistics bottlenecks following
adverse weather disruptions in the U.S. The latest data also
highlighted delays in shipments of manufacturers' finished goods, as
signalled by post-production inventory levels rising at the strongest
pace since November 2010.

Longer supplier delivery times and rising new business levels encouraged
some manufacturers to build their stocks of inputs in March. As a
result, pre-production inventory levels increased for the first time in
four months, albeit at a marginal pace. Meanwhile, input buying rose at
the fastest pace recorded in 2014 to-date.

On the inflation front, input costs increased sharply, and the rate of
inflation accelerated for the fourth month in a row. This in turn
contributed to a further robust rise in factory gate charges in March,
with the pace of inflation the steepest for almost three years.

Alberta & British Columbiaposted the steepest increase in average cost burdens.

"Manufacturers reported a welcome recovery in new order volumes, helped
by stronger export demand, and this in turn supported job creation
during March" said Cheryl Paradowski, president and chief executive officer, SCMA. "There were signs that supply chain disruptions held back production
growth and caused unfinished work to accumulate in March, although
subsequent efforts to reduce backlogs may well boost output levels in
the coming months. Input prices meanwhile continue to rise sharply in
the wake of the weakening exchange rate."

Notes to Editors:
The RBC Canadian Manufacturing PMI™ Report is based on data compiled from monthly replies to questionnaires
sent to purchasing executives in over 400 industrial companies. The
panel is stratified geographically and by Standard Industrial
Classification (SIC) group, based on industry contribution to Canadian
GDP.

Survey responses reflect the change, if any, in the current month
compared to the previous month based on data collected mid-month. For
each of the indicators the 'Report' shows the percentage reporting each
response, the net difference between the number of higher/better
responses and lower/worse responses, and the 'diffusion' index. This
index is the sum of the positive responses plus a half of those
responding 'the same'.

Diffusion indexes have the properties of leading indicators and are
convenient summary measures showing the prevailing direction of change.
An index reading above 50 indicates an overall increase in that
variable, below 50 an overall decrease.

The RBC Canadian Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index™ (RBC PMI™) is a composite index based on five of the individual indexes with the
following weights: New Orders - 0.3, Output - 0.25, Employment - 0.2,
Suppliers' Delivery Times - 0.15, Stock of Items Purchased - 0.1, with
the Delivery Times Index inverted so that it moves in a comparable
direction.

The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) survey methodology has developed an outstanding reputation for
providing the most up-to-date possible indication of what is really
happening in the private sector economy by tracking variables such as
sales, employment, inventories and prices. The indices are widely used
by businesses, governments and economic analysts in financial
institutions to help better understand business conditions and guide
corporate and investment strategy. In particular, central banks in many
countries (including the European Central Bank) use the data to help
make interest rate decisions. PMI surveys are the first indicators of
economic conditions published each month and are therefore available
well ahead of comparable data produced by government bodies.

Markit does not revise underlying survey data after first publication,
but seasonal adjustment factors may be revised from time to time as
appropriate which will affect the seasonally adjusted data series.
Historical data relating to the underlying (unadjusted) numbers, first
published seasonally adjusted series and subsequently revised data are
available to subscribers from Markit. Please contact [email protected].

ABOUT RBC
Royal Bank of Canada is Canada's largest bank, and one of the largest
banks in the world, based on market capitalization. We are one of North
America's leading diversified financial services companies, and provide
personal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance,
investor services and capital markets products and services on a global
basis. We employ approximately 79,000 full- and part-time employees who
serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and
institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 42 other
countries. For more information, please visit rbc.com.

RBC supports a broad range of community initiatives through donations,
sponsorships and employee volunteer activities. In 2013, we contributed
more than $104 million to causes worldwide, including donations and
community investments of more than $69 million and $35 million in
sponsorships. Learn more at www.rbc.com/community-sustainability.

About Supply Chain Management Association
As the leading and largest association in Canada for supply chain
management professionals, the Supply Chain Management Association
(SCMA) is the national voice for advancing and promoting the
profession. SCMA sets the standard of excellence for professional
skills, knowledge and integrity and was the first supply chain
association in the world to require that all members adhere to a Code
of Ethics.

With nearly 8000 members working across the private and public sectors,
SCMA is the principal source of supply chain training, education and
professional development in the country. Through its 10 Provincial and
Territorial Institutes, SCMA grants the Supply Chain Management
Professional (SCMP) designation, the highest achievement in the field
and the mark of strategic supply chain leadership.

SCMA was formed in 2013 through the amalgamation of the Purchasing
Management Association of Canada and Supply Chain and Logistics
Association of Canada. With a combined history of more than 140 years,
today the association embraces all aspects of strategic supply chain
management, including: purchasing/procurement, strategic sourcing,
contract management, materials/inventory management, and logistics and
transportation. For more information, please visit scmanational.ca.

About Markit
Markit is a leading global diversified provider of financial information
services. We provide products that enhance transparency, reduce risk
and improve operational efficiency. Our customers include banks, hedge
funds, asset managers, central banks, regulators, auditors, fund
administrators and insurance companies. Founded in 2003, we employ over
3,000 people in 11 countries. For more information, please see www.markit.com

About PMIPurchasing Managers' Index™ (PMI™) surveys are now available for 32 countries and also for key regions
including the Eurozone. They are the most closely-watched business
surveys in the world, favoured by central banks, financial markets and
business decision makers for their ability to provide up-to-date,
accurate and often unique monthly indicators of economic trends. To
learn more go to markit.com/economics.

The intellectual property rights to the RBC Canadian Manufacturing PMI
provided herein are owned by or licensed to Markit Economics Limited.
Any unauthorised use, including but not limited to copying,
distributing, transmitting or otherwise of any data appearing is not
permitted without Markit's prior consent. Markit shall not have any
liability, duty or obligation for or relating to the content or
information ("data") contained herein, any errors, inaccuracies,
omissions or delays in the data, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon. In no event shall Markit be liable for any special,
incidental, or consequential damages, arising out of the use of the
data. Purchasing Managers' Index™ and PMI™ are either registered trade marks of Markit Economics Limited or are
licensed to Markit Economics Limited. RBC uses the above marks under
licence. Markit is a registered trade mark of Markit Group Limited.

Container technology is sending shock waves through the world of cloud computing. Heralded as the 'next big thing,' containers provide software owners a consistent way to package their software and dependencies while infrastructure operators benefit from a standard way to deploy and run them. Containers present new challenges for tracking usage due to their dynamic nature. They can also be deployed to bare metal, virtual machines and various cloud platforms. How do software owners track the usag...

SYS-CON Events announced today that MobiDev, a software development company, will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
MobiDev is a software development company with representative offices in Atlanta (US), Sheffield (UK) and Würzburg (Germany); and development centers in Ukraine. Since 2009 it has grown from a small group of passionate engineers and business managers to a full-scale mobi...

With SaaS use rampant across organizations, how can IT departments track company data and maintain security? More and more departments are commissioning their own solutions and bypassing IT. A cloud environment is amorphous and powerful, allowing you to set up solutions for all of your user needs: document sharing and collaboration, mobile access, e-mail, even industry-specific applications.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Shawn Mills, President and a founder of Green House Data, discussed h...

For IoT to grow as quickly as analyst firms’ project, a lot is going to fall on developers to quickly bring applications to market. But the lack of a standard development platform threatens to slow growth and make application development more time consuming and costly, much like we’ve seen in the mobile space.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mike Weiner, Product Manager of the Omega DevCloud with KORE Telematics Inc., discussed the evolving requirements for developers as IoT matures and conducte...

There are many considerations when moving applications from on-premise to cloud. It is critical to understand the benefits and also challenges of this migration. A successful migration will result in lower Total Cost of Ownership, yet offer the same or higher level of robustness.
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Michael Meiner, an Engineering Director at Oracle, Corporation, analyzed a range of cloud offerings (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and discussed the benefits/challenges of migrating to each offe...

One of the hottest areas in cloud right now is DRaaS and related offerings.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Dale Levesque, Disaster Recovery Product Manager with Windstream's Cloud and Data Center Marketing team, will discuss the benefits of the cloud model, which far outweigh the traditional approach, and how enterprises need to ensure that their needs are properly being met.

In their session at 17th Cloud Expo, Hal Schwartz, CEO of Secure Infrastructure & Services (SIAS), and Chuck Paolillo, CTO of Secure Infrastructure & Services (SIAS), provide a study of cloud adoption trends and the power and flexibility of IBM Power and Pureflex cloud solutions.
In his role as CEO of Secure Infrastructure & Services (SIAS), Hal Schwartz provides leadership and direction for the company.

In a recent research, analyst firm IDC found that the average cost of a critical application failure is $500,000 to $1 million per hour and the average total cost of unplanned application downtime is $1.25 billion to $2.5 billion per year for Fortune 1000 companies. In addition to the findings on the cost of the downtime, the research also highlighted best practices for development, testing, application support, infrastructure, and operations teams.

"We've just seen a huge influx of new partners coming into our ecosystem, and partners building unique offerings on top of our API set," explained Seth Bostock, Chief Executive Officer at IndependenceIT, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

SYS-CON Events announced today that HPM Networks will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
For 20 years, HPM Networks has been integrating technology solutions that solve complex business challenges. HPM Networks has designed solutions for both SMB and enterprise customers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Software Defined Data Center (SDDC), which enables organizations to seamlessly run in a hybrid cloud model (public + private cloud), is here to stay. IDC estimates that the software-defined networking market will be valued at $3.7 billion by 2016.
Security is a key component and benefit of the SDDC, and offers an opportunity to build security 'from the ground up' and weave it into the environment from day one.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Reuven Harrison, CTO and Co-Founder of Tufin,...

Mobile, social, Big Data, and cloud have fundamentally changed the way we live. “Anytime, anywhere” access to data and information is no longer a luxury; it’s a requirement, in both our personal and professional lives. For IT organizations, this means pressure has never been greater to deliver meaningful services to the business and customers.

The Internet of Everything (IoE) brings together people, process, data and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before – transforming information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. IoE creates new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented opportunities to improve business and government operations, decision making and mission support capabilities.

Chuck Piluso presented a study of cloud adoption trends and the power and flexibility of IBM Power and Pureflex cloud solutions.
Prior to Secure Infrastructure and Services, Mr. Piluso founded North American Telecommunication Corporation, a facilities-based Competitive Local Exchange Carrier licensed by the Public Service Commission in 10 states, serving as the company's chairman and president from 1997 to 2000.
Between 1990 and 1997, Mr. Piluso served as chairman & founder of International Te...

Puppet Labs has announced the next major update to its flagship product: Puppet Enterprise 2015.2. This release includes new features providing DevOps teams with clarity, simplicity and additional management capabilities, including an all-new user interface, an interactive graph for visualizing infrastructure code, a new unified agent and broader infrastructure support.

Business and IT leaders today need better application delivery capabilities to support critical new innovation. But how often do you hear objections to improving application delivery like, "I can harden it against attack, but not on this timeline"; "I can make it better, but it will cost more"; "I can deliver faster, but not with these specs"; or "I can stay strong on cost control, but quality wil...

The Federal Government’s “Cloud First” policy mandates that agencies take full advantage of cloud computing benefits to maximize capacity utilization, improve IT flexibility and responsiveness, and minimize cost. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a mandatory government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and con...

Do the ‘darker’ channels and means that exist for searching the web in anonymity ultimately spell doom for the wider march towards open data?
So-called ‘open data’ is supposed to be an instrument for breaking down information gaps across industries and letting companies share benchmarks and best practices that raise productivity – all information should be open and that should (theoretically) inc...

Learn how the IoT Cloud will power the world of tomorrow and why managing IoT through the cloud is as important as cloud computing itself. Learn how the devices of tomorrow will work on business models that reflect a new business strategy and a way to consume services.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ian Khan, Manager, Innovation & Marketing at Solgenia, will discuss how powered by the cloud and...

Technology changes at the speed of light. To say it can be hard to keep up is an understatement. For performance engineers, taking charge of your own continuing education is one of the most important things you can do to remain at the top of your game.

JavaScript is primarily a client-based dynamic scripting language most commonly used within web browsers as client-side scripts to interact with the user, browser, and communicate asynchronously to servers.
If you have been part of any web-based development, odds are you have worked with JavaScript in one form or another. In this article, I'll focus on the aspects of JavaScript that are releva...

The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly become the next “be all to end all” in information technology. Touted as how cloud computing will connect everyday things together, it is also feared as the real- life instantiation of The Terminator’s Skynet, where sentient robot team with an omnipresent and all-knowing entity that uses technology to control, and ultimately destroy, all of humanity.

Most developers learn best by examples, which naturally tend to simplify matters and omit things that aren’t essential for understanding. This means that the “Hello World” example, when used as starting point for an application, may be not suitable for production scenarios at all.
I started using Node.js like that and I have to confess that it took me almost two years to quantify the huge perform...

As a recent graduate, and now professor in the University of Connecticut's Business Analytics and Project Management masters program, I have a lot of conversations surrounding the topic of "Big Data" and questions such as, "What does that term actually mean?"
Big Data is a fairly new topic and what seems to be an elusive term for many. Conversations are important to help bring clarity to Big Data...

Knowledge management, in business terms, refers to saving, developing, sharing, and effectively using knowledge for the benefit of organization. It refers to a multi-disciplined approach of achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.
Scientia potentia est (Latin proverb meaning "knowledge is power") attributed to 16th century philosopher Sir Francis Bacon is nowadays ...

It is interesting to me, how quickly the hype cycle of a good thing can turn it into a monster that will inevitably eat itself, leaving a much smaller – and much more useful – concept or toolset behind. It has happened over and over in high tech, one need only say “XML” to understand what I mean. It is definitely a useful tool for some jobs, but the “XML Everywhere” craze was insane. People declar...

As companies embrace the DevOps movement, they rely heavily on automation to improve the time to market for new features and services. DevOps is a long, never-ending journey with a goal of continuously improving the software delivery process, resulting in better products and services and, ultimately, happier customers. At the beginning of their DevOps journeys, many companies focus on continuous i...

We Need a Holistic Network Infrastructure: Why Controllers Are Not Cutting It
For years, we've relied too heavily on individual network functions or simplistic cloud controllers. However, they are no longer enough for today's modern cloud data center. Businesses need a comprehensive platform architecture in order to deliver a complete networking suite for IoT environment based on OpenStack.
In h...

It's been three years since I compared medieval security to web security, and a few things have happened. Mobile and wireless have evolved as the dominant platforms, while the life between personal computing and business computing has continued to fray. And, of course, thanks to web services, the web-delivered API now dominates the connected world.
It's time to take a second look, focusing on t...

Digital Transformation is the process of updating your business and IT infrastructure to align with today's and tomorrow's consumers. Today that is important, but hard to do. Mobile consumer behaviors are changing far faster than most IT budgets and initiatives and that can cause problems. If your customers are adopting technologies and changing their path-to-purchase journeys at a pace that is ...

In their session at DevOps Summit, Asaf Yigal, co-founder and the VP of Product at Logz.io, and Tomer Levy, co-founder and CEO of Logz.io, will explore the entire process that they have undergone – through research, benchmarking, implementation, optimization, and customer success – in developing a processing engine that can handle petabytes of data.
They will also discuss the requirements of suc...

The multi-trillion economic opportunity around the "Internet of Things" (IoT) is emerging as the hottest topic for investors in 2015. As we connect the physical world with information technology, data from actions, processes and the environment can increase sales, improve efficiencies, automate daily activities and minimize risk.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ed Maguire, Senior Analyst at CLSA ...

"To us DevOps is actually a movement that at the very center is about developers and IT operations teams collaborating in a framework that drives agility, drives the ideation to production readiness in a seamless manner," explained Monish Sharma, Director in PwC's consulting business, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @DevOpsSummit, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

Beginning with Ruxit Agent v1.73, Ruxit provides root cause analysis for Node.js errors down to the code level. As with other services, Ruxit marks web requests to Node.js as failed based on the accompanying HTTP error code.
Simply click the Failure rate portion of any Node.js service infographic to view the Failure analysis chart. If you have failures, click the View details of failures button t...

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.